How does a small gang of lightly armed Somali pirates hijack a modern cargo ship?

Speed and weaponry, mainly. Modern pirates, whether off the coast of Somalia or in the crowded shipping lanes of southeast Asia, typically use fast speedboats to zoom up to the sterns of slow-moving cargo ships. They then toss grappling hooks up to the rails and climb up ropes to clamber on deck.

Pirates are generally armed with assault rifles and, increasingly, rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Modern ships' crews are usually unarmed for a number of reasons, among them laws that prevent armed vessels from docking in the ports of many countries.

"The maritime unions, shipping companies and the International Maritime Organization all agree that ship's crews should not be armed," says Capt. George Quick, vice president of the International Organization of Masters, Mates and Pilots, based in Linthicum, Md. "It would only escalate the situation The [Somali] pirates are pretty well funded, and they'd just get bigger weapons."

"The maritime unions, shipping companies and the International Maritime Organization all agree that ship's crews should not be armed," says Capt. George Quick, vice president of the International Organization of Masters, Mates and Pilots, based in Linthicum, Md.

I think I may have spotted the problem.

"It would only escalate the situation The [Somali] pirates are pretty well funded, and they'd just get bigger weapons."

Well which is it? Either the pirates are worse than "dirt poor", as the MSM keeps telling us so we feel sooorrry for them, or they are well funded. It can't be both.

Getting his with can would ruin your whole afternoon. One ship in the Pacific had a pump and hose to shoot a combination of gasoline, diesel and detergent. They would cover the attacking boat with it, then aim Roman Candles at them.

15
posted on 04/15/2009 9:33:35 AM PDT
by MindBender26
(The Hellfire Missile is one of the wonderful ways God shows us he loves American Soldiers & Marines)

No ship and no ship’s crew should work in a known pirate zone without at the very least personal weapons on board. They might be locked in a magazine during most of the voyage, but the moment you move into pirate waters weapons should be distributed and kept close at hand.

Others have commented that, on a large automated ship, there is often no one on deck. Obviously, in pirate waters you have to have someone on pirate watch around the clock.

And the navy needs to have a rapid response team. If it takes 20 hours for a ship to get to you, that isn’t much help. They need to have assault teams ready to go as soon as the word comes that a ship is being approached. A fixed wing plane could be on the scene within short order to sink or drive off the attacker, and a chopper with the assault team could be there within an hour or so to secure the ship if necessary. We have to do more than we’re doing.

We don’t need to arm these crews. the legal and liability reasons are many. We need to arm a couple of modern day “Q” ships with Navy SEALS and send them out to go hunting.

It shouldn’t be hard to put a few “special” containers of equipment and ammo onboard an easy looking merchant, along with a platoon who are prepared to forcibly repel boarders when attacked. If the pirates are using four or five vessels, then put 2 platoons onboard the bait vessel.

The only thing these “pirates” understand is the business end of a gun, and considering the ransoms being paid by gutless countries who never do seem to invest in their own defense, unless the US takes the lead in shutting this business down forcibly, it will only continue.

Quick (from the article): "Standard maritime doctrine is that crews should not resist once boarders are on deck," he says. "The [Somali] pirates are really just after the ransom money, so it's best to keep things as calm as possible."

And people wonder why there's a lot of piracy going on?

There are some interesting weapons described in the article.

20
posted on 04/15/2009 9:36:51 AM PDT
by Cyber Liberty
(Pretending the Admin Moderator doesn't exist will result in suspension.)

Close-In Weapons System (CIWS)
The MK 15 Phalanx Close-In Weapons System (CIWS - pronounced sea-whiz) is a fast-reaction, rapid-fire 20-millimeter gun system that provides US Navy ships with a terminal defense against anti-ship missiles that have penetrated other fleet defenses. Designed to engage anti-ship cruise missiles and fixed-wing aircraft at short range, Phalanx automatically engages functions usually performed by separate, independent systems such as search, detection, threat evaluation, acquisition, track, firing, target destruction, kill assessment and cease fire. Phalanx underwent operational tests and evaluation onboard USS Bigelow in 1977, and exceeded maintenance and reliability specifications. Phalanx production started in 1978 with orders for 23 USN and 14 Foreign Military Sales (FMS) systems.
Phalanx is a point-defense, total-weapon system consisting of two 20mm gun mounts that provide a terminal defense against incoming air targets. CIWS, without assistance from other shipboard systems, will automatically engage incoming anti-ship missiles and high-speed, low-level aircraft that have penetrated the ship primary defense envelope. As a unitized system, CIWS automatically performs search, detecting, tracking, threat evaluation, firing, and kill assessments of targets while providing for manual override. Each gun mount houses a fire control assembly and a gun subsystem. The fire control assembly is composed of a search radar for surveillance and detection of hostile targets and a track radar for aiming the gun while tracking a target. The unique closed-loop fire control system that tracks both the incoming target and the stream of outgoing projectiles (by monitoring their incoming noise signature) gives CIWS the capability to correct its aim to hit fast-moving targets, including ASMs.

The gun subsystem employs a gatling gun consisting of a rotating cluster of six barrels. The gatling gun fires a 20mm subcaliber sabot projectile using a heavy-metal (either tungsten or depleted uranium) 15mm penetrator surrounded by a plastic sabot and a light-weight metal pusher. The gatling gun fires 20mm ammunition at either 3,000 or 4,500 rounds-per-minute with a burst length of continuous, 60, or 100 rounds.

CIWS has been a mainstay self defense system aboard nearly every class of ship since the late 70s. It was originally designed to defeat low altitude antiship cruise missiles (ASCMs) and was called the block 0. As antiship cruise missiles became more complex in maneuvers and ability to be detected, and warfare areas moved from open ocean to littoral environments, CIWS has evolved to meet the threat.

Block 1 incorporated a new search antenna to detect high altitude missiles, improved search sensitivity, increased the ammunition available for firing by 50 percent, a pneumatic gun drive which increased the firing rate to 4500 rounds per minute, and started using tungsten ammunition as well as depleted uranium. Block I improvements provide increased elevation coverage, larger magazine space for increased round capacity, a variable and higher gun fire rate, and improved radar and processing capabilities.

Block 1A incorporated a new High Order Language Computer (HOLC) to provide more processing power over the obsolete general purpose digital computer, improved fire control algorithms to counter maneuvering targets, search multiple weapons coordination to better manage engagements, and an end-to-end testing function to better determine system functionality.

Block 1B Phalanx Surface Mode (PSUM) incorporates a side mounted Forward Looking Infrared Radar (FLIR) which enables CIWS to engage low slow or hovering aircraft and surface craft. Additionally, the FLIR assists the radar in engaging some ASCMs bringing a greater chance of ship survivability. Block 1B uses a thermal imager Automatic Acquisition Video Tracker (AAVT) and stablilization system that provide surface mode and electro-optic (EO) angle track. These Block 1B enhancements will allow day/night detection capability and enable the CIWS to engage small surface targets, slow-moving air targets, and helicopters.
Baseline 2C improvements provide an integrated multi-weapon operations capability. During integrated operations, the command system controls CIWS sensors, target reports, mode employment, and doctrine. The sensors are utilized to provide 360 degree search and track coverage, while providing track data to, and receiving designations from, the Command system. This CIWS installation includes a conversion kit for each weapon group to facilitate ease and safety of maintenance; the maintenance enclosure kit installs the below-deck equipment for a gun mount in a prefabricated enclosure with the mount located above it.

25
posted on 04/15/2009 9:45:46 AM PDT
by Grampa Dave
(Does 0B0Z0 have any friends, who are not criminals, foreign/domestic terrorists, or tax cheats?)

That's like saying if we gave a gun to all the convenience store clerks then there wouldn't be any stickups. We know better - it's not their job, it's not what they're trained for, and the odds are they won't want to die for someone elses money anyway.

If you want to put arms on the ships then contract it out. Let every U.S. ship, for example, pick up two or three armed professionals as they're entering the area and then have them ride the ship through pirate waters. As the ship leaves the danger area, the security team is air lifted to a ship that is inbound. Shipping lanes are pretty well defined and you could set up half dozen or fewer points that would be convenient for most of the U.S. ships going through the area to pick the guards up at. And if the pirates show up, you have a couple of trained professionals who know what they're doing and were hired specifically to protect the ship and its crew.

Judging from the age and inexperience of the the pirates it seems likely that the actual perps are just kids being sent out there by warlords/mob bosses who are running the operations and taking in the finances from a secure land base or possibly a mother ship.

Those are the people we need to wipe out.

38
posted on 04/15/2009 10:09:10 AM PDT
by Wil H
(The most destructive act of Muslim terrorism against the US was paying for 0bama's Harvard education)

Security contractors seem to be the most cost effective way to deal with the problem. But it appears the owners, insurers, maritime organizations and unions don’t want the added bother and expense. Their solution is to fight pirates on our dime with our resources.

So screw ‘em. Let them just put down pirate ransoms as a cost of doing business and let’s move on.

Right on, that and a brace of 40 mm’s on the bow. Sooner or later some Americans are going to be killed by the pirates. And when that happens the buck lands on Prez. Obama’s desk. I have to think that we have a wimp for President. Arm the damned ships.

I would paint a big American flag on both sides of the ship. The government should provide the armed guard and weapons installation. The sooner we get respect for American shipping, the sooner the pirates will avoid American ships. We need the good press.

Give me 3 shooters with those and I will stop that pirate before he gets within the 930 meter “self destruct” max range of the series PG7 RPG’s........ These little SOB’s just have to lob a PG7 into the stacked sea containers to cause big trouble on such a vessel. set that bottom conex on fore and it’ll get ugly fast !

So if I were tasked to get through that indian country I would use the 25MM upper receiver for Ronnies M82A1 Barrett and a set of SOPHIE thermal binocs to stand watch for “pirates”.......:o)

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